Straw-cutter



0. C. TAYLOR.

Straw Cutter.

No. 31,4174. Patented Febf2, 1861.

UNITED sTATgEs Parar risica.,

O. C. TAYLOR, OF EAST BURLINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA.

STRAW-CUTTER.

Specification of Letters Patent No.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, O. O. TAYLOR, of East Burlington, in the county ofBradford and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and ImprovedStraw-Cutter; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full,clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to theannexed drawings, making a part of this specification, in which- Figure1 is a side sectional view of my invention taken in the line zr, fr,Fig. 2; Fig. 2, a plan or top view of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the twofigures.

This invention consists in a novel means employed for operating areciprocating knife-gate and feed rollers substantially as hereinafterdescribed.

To enable those skilled in the art to fully understand and construct vmyinvention I will proceed to describe it.

A, represents a feed box which is supported at a suitable height by aproper framing B, and C, is a rectangular knifegate which is fittedbetween suitable guides a, a, at the front end of the feed box. Theknife D, is fitted in the gate C, as usual and all the parts abovedescribed are constructed and arranged substantially the same as anordinary straw cutter provided with a reciprocating knife-gate.

To the feed-box A, there is attached a bow-shaped upright E, at theupper part of which a lever F, is attached by a fulcrum pin b. rIhefront end of this lever is connected by a link c, to the upper part ofthe knife-gate O, andthe back end of said lever is Vconnected by a linkCZ, to the crank e, of a driving shaft Gr, which has its bearings inshort uprights f, f, at the back part of the feed box.

To each side of the lever F, there is attached a bar H. Thesebars curveoutward from the lever F, and extend down at each side of the feed boxand engage with ratchets g, g', which are at the ends of the axes offeed rollers I, I' at the front part of the feed box.

The feed rollers I, I', are placed one over the other in the same axialplane, the lower roller I, being fitted in the bottom of the feed31,417, dated February 12, 1861.

box in stationary bearings, and the upper roller I', having its journalsfitted in straps or links J, J, which extend down one at each side ofthe feed box, and are fitted on the ends of a cross bar K, which isconnected by a link L, with a spring M, said spring having a tendency tokeep the upper roller down on the lower one.

rIhe bar H, at the right hand side of the machine engages with theratchet g', of the upper roller I', and the bar H, at the left handside, engages with the ratchet g, of the lower feed roller I, the latterbar engaging with the upper part of its ratchet g, and the former oneengaging with the lower part of its ratchet g'. The bars H, H, it willbe seen are pawls and rotate the rollers I, I', in the directionindicated by the arrows in Fig. l.

From the above description it will be seen that by rotating the shaftGr, the lever F, will be vibrated and a reciprocating motioncommunicated to the knife gate C, the lever at the same time actuatingthe pawls H, H, and the latter rotating the rollers I, I', which feedthe straw to the knife D.

To facilitate the cutting operation I affix two metal plates 7L, 7L', tothe front part of the feed box. These plates are placed a littledistance apart to allow the knife D, to pass or work between them, andthe plates form bearing surfaces for the straw so that the knife D, canact with much greater facility that usual.

To the upper part of the knife gate O, an arm N, is attached to theouter end of which the rod O, of a churn dasher is connected when thechurn is to be used.

The arrangement of the lever F, and crank shaft G, as shown to operatethe knifegate O, admit of the work being done withva moderateapplication of power and also' admits of the operating of the churndasher by attaching it to the knife-gate. The various ordinary deviceshitherto used for operating the knife gate will not admit of theattachment of the churn dasher to t-he gate for the purpose of operatingthe former.

rIhe churn is only connected with the knife gate O, of the straw cutterwhen the former is designed to be used.

Having thus described my invention what I claim as neT and desire t0secure by Letters Patent is- The lever F, provided with the pawls H, 5H, applied to the feed boX A, and connecte to the knife gate C, andcrank-shaft Gr, substantially as shown, for the purpose of serving as ameans for operating the knife gate C, and feed rollers I, I.

C. W. COWTAU.-

